I sold mine too. I did very well in it (relatively speaking) by following the heavies at close range and trading like a bastard when the moment was right... But for some reason I found it really boring.

I sold mine too. I did very well in it (relatively speaking) by following the heavies at close range and trading like a bastard when the moment was right... But for some reason I found it really boring.

Whenever I're tried something similar, I've found that people make you a priority target and either 1) shoot your massive weak spots, or 2) load gold and shoot through your frontal plate.

Well... I am hardly an expert, but it seems to me that it's one of those tanks where you need to position yourself frontline, with the right mix of allies. If your heavies are competent, and go to the right place in the right numbers, then you should follow. A lot of "ifs" of course! Getting shot once or twice in return for unloading a full clip is part of the game with autoloaders. As long as your heavies shield you during reload, you are fine. If your team is hopeless, you are doomed, whatever you do. Get involved!

Probably should have mentioned that the advice I'd like needs to not include the lines "sell it" or "just load gold".

Load the gold was going to be my suggestion. Honestly I found it a very awkward tank, which is probably because of the large clip, it's min/maxed which means it's always going to be situational to play.

Well... I am hardly an expert, but it seems to me that it's one of those tanks where you need to position yourself frontline, with the right mix of allies. If your heavies are competent, and go to the right place in the right numbers, then you should follow. A lot of "ifs" of course! Getting shot once or twice in return for unloading a full clip is part of the game with autoloaders. As long as your heavies shield you during reload, you are fine. If your team is hopeless, you are doomed, whatever you do. Get involved!

My experience so far:

1) Camp. Your dodgy armour is not an issue, but you struggle to hit/pen anything. The good accuracy on paper seems rather more suspect in real life and so you bounce a LOT of shots.

2) Try to provide support for your push (as you suggest). Get stuck in. This is where I've had the most success, but as soon as people see you they tend to prioritise you. Your gun will throw shots into every corner of the aiming circle that results in a miss/non-pen. Only really seems to work against muppets who just let you farm them or if you catch some enemies on the hop.

Simeon85, on 28 February 2018 - 01:25 PM, said:

Load the gold was going to be my suggestion. Honestly I found it a very awkward tank, which is probably because of the large clip, it's min/maxed which means it's always going to be situational to play.

I carry 2 clips of APCR for special occasions, but I'm rather old school and would prefer to use weak spots, repositioning etc. Besides which I don't think loading gold would magically make me get respectable amounts of damage out of the machine. If I connect say 1 more shot per match, that's only bringing me up to 2k average damage. I'd like to actually improve at playing the tank.

1) Camp. Your dodgy armour is not an issue, but you struggle to hit/pen anything. The good accuracy on paper seems rather more suspect in real life and so you bounce a LOT of shots.

2) Try to provide support for your push (as you suggest). Get stuck in. This is where I've had the most success, but as soon as people see you they tend to prioritise you. Your gun will throw shots into every corner of the aiming circle that results in a miss/non-pen. Only really seems to work against muppets who just let you farm them or if you catch some enemies on the hop.

I carry 2 clips of APCR for special occasions, but I'm rather old school and would prefer to use weak spots, repositioning etc. Besides which I don't think loading gold would magically make me get respectable amounts of damage out of the machine. If I connect say 1 more shot per match, that's only bringing me up to 2k average damage. I'd like to actually improve at playing the tank.

If you wana play it like a td than load gold or go home.

If you wana play it with benefits it have, i find its great as support heavy.

Thats why i was suggesting suicide rush. but what i really meant was supporting team and using opportunities while being open minded about possibility to getting blown up while killing enemy.

In this way this td offers team ability to take position it could not have for half the game if at all. And to kill key enemies that, if left uninterrupted, would cause lots of problems for your team.

I remember when I "powergrinded" myself through the French TD-s (played ALL of them, only used free xp on the TIer IV one), and I really really loved them (still remember how raging meds made me smile, because the Tier VII one had very fast hull traverse so they couldn't get behind me). Nowadays all I read and hear is how crapthey are. /Sadness

Right, so with a rather underwhelming game, managed to get 1st class mastery derping around on Himmelsdorf. Seriously, how is 3k damage, 2 kills and a little assistance damage over 1k base xp at tier 10?!

p.s. screw the Type 5s side armour that bounced most of a clip of APCR from close range.

Seems to work best (after my so far very limited experience) running around in the wake of real tanks mopping up, flanking (where possible) and not being caught with your trousers down (sounds obvious when you put it like that).

Didn't watch the replays, but by judging from post-battle results. OP seems to barely hit (and pen) clips. Ofcourse 257 pen is very hard to work with especially sniping, but i would at least try to connect all shots. But even then, Foch B seems like an excellent heavy support. 2400 potential dmg per clip is really good. And clip reload is pretty ok as well (compared to other heavy autoloaders like kravagn). So even when cornered you mostly will reload before dying and getting some extra dmg out there.

Ofcourse 257 pen is very hard to work with especially sniping, but i would at least try to connect all shots.

Well, I don't go out of my way to miss. In the replays I linked, my gunnery is very dodgy vs an AMX 1390 in one of them, but often I find the gun is a bit of a potato thrower.

But even then, Foch B seems like an excellent heavy support. 2400 potential dmg per clip is really good. And clip reload is pretty ok as well (compared to other heavy autoloaders like kravagn). So even when cornered you mostly will reload before dying and getting some extra dmg out there.

By looking at the enemy team's line-up 3 M48's stand out the most. Meaning they will play middle, so your initial positioning was bad. You were basically looking at the stone that blocks your shots anyway. Then you're going into a position without thinking how you're going to retreat, which obviously kills you. I would've gone to the side of the Cliff with all your heavies. BTW, you need more APCR for full Tier 10 games, use it as default, 257 pen isn't gonna cut it.

Erlenberg

Map awareness problems. First you position yourself to attempt sniping from a very long distance. Then you keep going forward when it's obvious that there are no enemy tanks there, your scouts haven't spotted anyone, you should be going back to base to snipe from the bush in a cap. You're not checking tank's outline properly, you shot a stone once and you're not comfortable with leading shots in the right manner. Then you derp out of cover from a typical camping position and lose all your HP. Then you rush forward to stay out of position once again. It was clear that several enemy tanks have crossed bridge, however you do not pay any attention to that. Very bad plays.

Abbey

Bad positioning resulting from not looking at the enemy line-up properly. Enemy team has a few hard hitting tanks that punish you. Then you don't fall back properly, you just go back to base without thinking of your next step. Your awareness fails again. You could've killed BC that rushed your 113, he was in the open for you, however you kept looking at Sheridan who was clearly taking cover.

There's no point in watching further. You need to work on your basic skills: map awareness, positioning, reading line-ups, etc.

By looking at the enemy team's line-up 3 M48's stand out the most. Meaning they will play middle, so your initial positioning was bad. You were basically looking at the stone that blocks your shots anyway. Then you're going into a position without thinking how you're going to retreat, which obviously kills you. I would've gone to the side of the Cliff with all your heavies. BTW, you need more APCR for full Tier 10 games, use it as default, 257 pen isn't gonna cut it.

I'll be honest, I have no idea what to do in TDs on that map. As for the APCR point, call me old fashioned, but I don't like loading it as default.

Erlenberg

Map awareness problems. First you position yourself to attempt sniping from a very long distance. Then you keep going forward when it's obvious that there are no enemy tanks there, your scouts haven't spotted anyone, you should be going back to base to snipe from the bush in a cap. You're not checking tank's outline properly, you shot a stone once and you're not comfortable with leading shots in the right manner. Then you derp out of cover from a typical camping position and lose all your HP. Then you rush forward to stay out of position once again. It was clear that several enemy tanks have crossed bridge, however you do not pay any attention to that. Very bad plays.

Fair enough.

Abbey

Bad positioning resulting from not looking at the enemy line-up properly. Enemy team has a few hard hitting tanks that punish you. Then you don't fall back properly, you just go back to base without thinking of your next step. Your awareness fails again. You could've killed BC that rushed your 113, he was in the open for you, however you kept looking at Sheridan who was clearly taking cover.

This is my least favourite map in the game bar none. With regard to the falling back, I was paranoid about being shot in the rear if I went any further, hence stopped at the base IIRC. Fair point about the BC. I thought the same at the time.

There's no point in watching further. You need to work on your basic skills: map awareness, positioning, reading line-ups, etc.

Cheers.

Thanks for the comments.

Been away from the game for a while and now that I've returned, I'm trying to work on one of those areas I don't feel confident with; playing tier 10. I will make many mistakes and hopefully it will throw up plenty of areas for improvement. Thanks again for the feedback.

You make a quite a few questionable decisions in those replays, but let's get general stuff out of the way first.

As a Foch B driver you absolutely need to avoid fighting around the corner and fighting hull down tanks. However you do want to fight enemies on the flat ground, you love flat ground, you can actually clip enemy tanks there. Also you don't really want to trade shots, you want to clip your enemies and retreat, which means that you should avoid exposing yourself until you have an opportunity to clip your enemies. I personally found two play styles that work with Foch B

Ambush tank: you're going as a second line support. It is imperative that you don't get spotted (it's not much of an ambush if enemies know you're there) and that you have someone spotting for you. Basically you'll be sitting behind cover and wait for enemy to make his move and once he does you pop up blow his tracks off and murder him.

Sniping tank: this one is pretty self explanatory. Sniping is not what Foch excels at but it's a much better choice than fighting hull down tanks or fighting at 300-ish meters. After all you want to preserve your limited HP for late game when there aren't as many tanks around and your clip gets exponentially more dangerous.

Basically you'll be switching between these two play styles depending on the map and enemy team line up.

Playing a support role like you would in T57 Heavy can work but it's kind of dodgy. You obviously don't have a turret, on top of that your armor doesn't really work on short ranges and you have fairly low HP. The main issue is that you can easily get punished and you kind of need your HP for later stages of the game.

Now on to the replays.

First thing that needs to go is your indecisiveness. In all of those replays there are moments where you don't know what to do and you derp around which usually costs you HP, you lost so much HP that way.

I would advise a more liberal usage of premium ammo. The Pilsen replay it was painful to watch, Maus reduced you from full HP to 350 before you decided that APCR might be a good idea. On Abbey you went to a spot where you're almost guaranteed to find a hull down tank which is bad enough on its own, but if you're going there at least load premium.

Your pick some really questionable positions in those replays, I hope that's because of the indecisiveness which is not hard to fix once you have a clear picture of what you want to do.

On Cliff the first position is just.... bad, if you want to snipe you should move further back, but what you really should be doing is help your heavies push around the mountain because flat ground. I'll assume that any mistake after your initial HP loss is just you being tilted.

On Abbey, you decided to push 1, 2 line which involves fighting hull down tanks around the corner which is bad as I already mentioned. What you should be doing is sniping on 8 line next to the river if someone is spotting or alternatively try to catch a careless medium in the middle.

On Pilsen you decided to push the medium line, which again involves fighting hull down tanks. Luckily for you they didn't have tanks there, but you really want to support heavies or stay around the factory in the middle. When I say support heavies what I actually mean is wait for one of their heavies to push and murder him.

On Siegfried Line you were a bit stubborn. Your position was not bad per say but you wasted a lot of time trying to shoot the tanks in the middle building. They're obviously not going to show your their sides if they know you're there. You should use your mobility to get a jump on other heavies. Especially when they started pushing in the city.

I'm not going to comment too much on Erlenberg, since both teams decided to stay on their side of the river, you as a TD have very little impact on the outcome and you're almost exclusively sniping.